UK Watchdog Says No Action Needed After HSBC Self-Corrects Breaches

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) dealt a rebuke to the banking giant after uncovering breaches of its responsibilities under open banking – which allows third-party financial service providers open access to consumer banking, transaction, and other financial data from lenders – on more than 50 different occasions over the past five years.

Its failure to report accurate information – and in some cases not providing the required information – risked leading customers to make the wrong decisions by leaving them potentially with an incorrect or incomplete understanding of products.

Read more: UK’s CMA Says HSBC Breached Rules For Over 9 Years

HSBC self-reported the breaches in June last year and has since taken action to address them.

The CMA said it follows previous open banking data breaches by the bank.

In a letter to HSBC’s retail banking arm, the regulator said: “This context makes the breaches … especially disappointing.”

It said it would not be taking official enforcement action given HSBC’s moves to “put things right”, but stressed it will monitor HSBC’s compliance “closely”.